CDA MediaThe National Coalition for Sexual Freedom is a national organization committed to creating a political, legal, and social environment in the United States that advances equal rights of consenting adults who practice forms of alternative sexual expression. NCSF is primarily focused on the rights of consenting adults in the SM-leather-fetish, swing, and polyamory communities, who often face discrimination because of their sexual expression.https://ncsfreedom.org
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 22:22:32 +0000en-gbNEWSBYTES - December 19, 2001https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/422-newsbytes-december-19-2001.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/422-newsbytes-december-19-2001.htmlNet Obscenity Provisions Revocation Sought NEWSBYTES By David McGuire http://www.NEWSBYTES.com December 19, 2001, Washington, DC -- A small civil liberties group has asked a federal judge in New York to revoke what remains of an Internet pornography law that was gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997. In a complaint filed in a New York City Federal Court [http://www.USCourts.gov ] last week, the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom [https://ncsfreedom.org ] argued that the court should overturn the provisions of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) that prohibit Web sites from displaying obscene material online. "Many people are unaware that one of the most powerful censorship provisions of the Communications Decency Act [http://EPIC.org/cda] is still in place. Even fewer realize the dangerous effect it could have in the hands of an overzealous administration and attorney general,"NCSF spokesperson Susan Wright said in a prepared statement. Passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, the CDA drew a barrage of criticism from industry groups, publishers and civil-liberties advocates. In addition to prohibiting online obscenity -- which was already illegal in physical form -- the law called for Web site operators to be held criminally responsible if they allowed…

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]]>CDA MediaSat, 23 Jun 2007 02:40:29 +0000San Francisco Bay Guardian - January 14, 2002https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/421-san-francisco-bay-guardian-january-14-2002.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/421-san-francisco-bay-guardian-january-14-2002.htmlTechsploitation By Annalee Newitz San Francisco Bay Guardian, January 14, 2002 HERE'S YET ANOTHER wacky fact you probably didn't know about the Communications Decency Act ole Bill Clinton signed into law way back in 1996: the good citizens of some small town in Arizona or southern California might have the power to send you to jail if they think the contents of your Web site are "obscene." The CDA contains a section that makes it illegal for people to make or post on the Internet "any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene, knowing that the recipient of the communication is under 18 years of age, regardless of whether the maker of such communication ... initiated the communication." There are two major problems with this part of the CDA. First, it assumes that people on the Internet can control who sees what they post on a Web site or in newsgroups. Right now it's just not technically possible to screen Web surfers by age or anything else. Second, and more disturbingly, the CDA doesn't define what "obscene" might be. The only definitions offered refer to "local community standards," a phrase drawn from previous Supreme…

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]]>CDA MediaFri, 22 Jun 2007 01:12:23 +0000San Francisco Frontiers - January 23, 2002https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/420-san-francisco-frontiers-january-23-2002.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/420-san-francisco-frontiers-january-23-2002.html Communications Decency Act A Lingering Coup de Grace? By Tim Kingston January 23, 2002 You may dimly recall the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which unsuccessfully attempted to define and proscribe "indecency" on the Internet. That law's legal core--its indecency provision--was immediately challenged and rapidly struck down as unconstitutional by free- and electronic-speech advocates. But, what many may not know is that another portion of the law, prohibiting "obscene" materials on the Internet as defined by the Supreme Court, remains standing. That is something that the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) and Barbara Nitke, a New York artist whose sexually charged photographs could be subject to the law, intend to change. Judy Guerin, the group's executive director, hopes this is a final coup de grace to that law. On Jan. 29, a federal court in New York City will be hearing preliminary arguments in a case that is likely to wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court--due to the fact that appellants have an automatic and expedited right of appeal. "Obscenity is tied to community standards," asserted Guerin. "We feel that community standards are not defined and what has been previously thought of as community standards…

]]>CDA MediaFri, 22 Jun 2007 01:09:51 +0000Ynot News - December 20, 2001https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/418-ynot-news-december-20-2001.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/418-ynot-news-december-20-2001.html Can David Beat Goliath in the Battle of Obscenity? By Judd Handler Ynot News, December 20, 2001 One would think it would take the giants of the industry to force the government to rethink existing, not-applicable-to-the-Internet obscenity laws. On the contrary, the little players may be the ones who are successful in getting the federal government and the Supreme Court to throw out irrelevant local community standards when applied to the Internet. As a result, new guidelines better suited for the cyber community may be formulated. The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and one if its members, an adult content photographer named Barbara Nitke are an example of those little players who aren't afraid to challenge the government. NCSF is a Washington, DC-based organization committed to protecting freedom of expression among consenting adults. A large portion of NCSF's members practices "an alternative sexual lifestyle," namely S&M, bondage and other fetishes. NCSF, according to its website, "mobilizes diverse grassroots communities to help change antiquated and unfair sex laws, and to protect free speech and advance privacy rights." NCSF indeed does just that. On December 11, the NSCF and Nitke filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn Internet obscenity…

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]]>CDA MediaFri, 22 Jun 2007 01:08:42 +0000Wired - December 12, 2001https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/417-wired-december-12-2001.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/417-wired-december-12-2001.htmlNew Suit Targets Obscenity Law By Julia Scheeres Wired, December 12, 2001 A national organization that promotes sexual tolerance and an artist who photographs pictures of couples engaged in sadomasochism filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to overturn Internet obscenity laws. The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and photographer Barbara Nitke argue that the obscenity provision of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) is so broad that it violates free speech. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, names as plaintiffs Attorney General John Ashcroft and the U.S. government, and aims to blot out the remaining censorship provisions of the CDA, a measure passed to protect minors from online pornography. Violators of the act face fines of up to $250,000 and two years in prison. The CDA was first attacked in the 1997 case Reno v. ACLU, when the Supreme Court struck down provisions related to indecency, ruling that the law harmed constitutionally protected free speech. The act's obscenity provisions are targeted by the new challenge. The murky semantics of the terms "obscenity" and "indecency" have long been the bane of First Amendment lawyers. (For the ACLU's take on the debate, click here).…

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]]>CDA MediaFri, 22 Jun 2007 01:07:33 +0000Spectator Magazine - January 11, 2002https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/416-spectator-magazine-january-11-2002.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/416-spectator-magazine-january-11-2002.htmlSTANDING UP TO BE COUNTED: BARBARA NITKE CHALLENGES JOHN ASHCROFT ON S/M AND INTERNET OBSCENITY By David Steinberg Spectator Magazine, January 11, 2002 "No matter how we're wired to express love, freedom is having the courage to be who we are." - Photographer/plaintiff Barbara Nitke On December 11, Barbara Nitke and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom brought suit in New York City's Federal District Court, seeking to have the last remaining censorship provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act declared overbroad, vague, and therefore unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The suit, which will be heard this spring by a three-judge panel headed by Judge Richard Berman, is a sequel to the 1997 action by the American Civil Liberties Union, Reno v. ACLU, that resulted in the Supreme Court unanimously striking down the provision of CDA that criminalized indecent, "patently offensive" material broadcast over the Internet. The aim of Nitke v. Ashcroft is to have the ruling extended to CDA's criminalization of obscene material as well. The Communications Decency Ac was the first Federal statute attempting to regulate sexual material broadcast over the Internet. CDA makes it a Federal crime to transmit any obscene or indecent "comment, request, suggestion, proposal,…

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]]>CDA MediaFri, 22 Jun 2007 01:06:23 +0000New York Press - August 28, 2002https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/415-new-york-press-august-28-2002.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/415-new-york-press-august-28-2002.html What's Obscene in Podunk By John Strausbaugh New York Press, August 28, 2002 Barbara Nitke is a well-known and much-seen photographer in her field. She's president of the New York Camera Club and teaches a course in darkroom technique at SVA. A nice, neat, sweet individual, she's the very very last person in New York City you'd suspect of being a pornographer. Which she's not, not exactly. She's more an arty photo-documentarian of porn -she shot an enormous number of stills on the sets of porn shoots in the 80s and 90s-and of the activities of people of "alternative sexuality" (read: s/m). You can see a sampling of her work at barbaranitke.com. Some portion of the erotic photography you encounter elsewhere on the Internet is also her work. And that, plus the fact that she's the very antithesis of the sleazy, trashy, drug-damaged porn professional, makes her the perfect person to front a legal challenge to current obscenity law. Which she's doing in a case with the simple yet grandiose name Nitke v. Ashcroft. Nitke knows about obscenity prosecutions from close personal observation. Her ex-husband Herb produced porn in the 70s, including, she says, an uncredited role…

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]]>CDA MediaFri, 22 Jun 2007 00:54:05 +0000New York Newsday - July 25 2005https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/414-new-york-newsday-july-25-2005.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/414-new-york-newsday-july-25-2005.htmlNew York judges refuse to say Internet obscenity law is unconstitutional By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press Writer, July 25, 2005, 7:58 PM EDT NEW YORK -- A special three-judge federal panel on Monday refused to find unconstitutional a law making it a crime to send obscenity over the Internet to children. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 had been challenged by Barbara Nitke, a photographer who specializes in pictures of sadomasochistic sexual behavior, and by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, a Baltimore-based advocacy organization. They contended in a December 2001 lawsuit brought in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that the law was so broad and vague in its scope that it violated the First Amendment, making it impossible for them to publish to the Internet because they cannot control the forum. A judge from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and two district judges heard the facts of the case and issued a written decision saying the plaintiffs had provided insufficient evidence to prove the law was unconstitutional. The panel noted that evidence was offered to indicate there are at least 1.4 million Web sites that mention bondage, discipline and sadomasochism but that evidence was insufficient to decide how…

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]]>CDA MediaFri, 22 Jun 2007 00:47:46 +0000New York Daily News - July 15, 2002https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/413-new-york-daily-news-july-15-2002.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/413-new-york-daily-news-july-15-2002.htmlFotog vs. Feds in Obscenity Law: Files suit to keep photos on Web by Veronica Vera New York Daily News, July 15, 2002 Photographer Barbara Nitke is used to being behind the lens, but if legal matters heat up, she may soon find the government focusing on her. Nitke is ready to step into the foreground as the chief plantiff in Barbara Nitke and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom vs. John Ashcroft and the US Government in a challenge to the Communications Decency Act, which governs obscenity on the Internet. The lawsuit was filed on Dec. 11 in Manhattan Federal Court of New York; the government moved to dismiss, and the plaintiffs have moved for an injunction. The case continues to make its way through the courts. Nitke, whose photo show "20 Years" opened on Friday at the Art at Large Studio in Manhattan, began her career in 1982 as a still photographer on movie sets. But since 1994, her emphasis has been on chronicling the intimate lives of couples. She has gained a considerable reputation as a fine-art photographer and is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts. Photojournalist Mark Peterson, who attended the packed opening,…

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]]>CDA MediaFri, 22 Jun 2007 00:47:04 +0000Nerve - December 11, 2001https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/412-nerve-december-11-2001.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/412-nerve-december-11-2001.htmlNerve December 11, 2001 Photographer Barbara Nitke and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) filed a lawsuit today, claiming the Internet censorship provision of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) violates the First Amendment right to free speech. The provision stipulates that "local community standards" will judge whether or not something is indecent. Yet attorney John Wirenius argues that "By allowing the most restrictive jurisdiction to define what speech can be banned as obscene from the Internet, the CDA allows one community to limit what the entire nation is allowed to discuss, to read or to view. The First Amendment does not allow any one locality to impose its morality on the nation." Artists like Barbara Nitke fear that their artwork could be targeted by John Ashcroft, who has promised to enforce obscenity laws.

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]]>CDA MediaFri, 22 Jun 2007 00:43:19 +0000CNN - December 20, 2001https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/410-cnn-december-20-2001.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/410-cnn-december-20-2001.htmlLawsuit targets last scraps of Net-obscenity law By Sam Costello (IDG News) CNN, December 20, 2001 The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) and artist Barbara Nitke have filed a lawsuit challenging the remaining provisions of the Communications Decency Act, much of which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997. The act, or CDA, was passed in 1996 and was the first U.S. law designed to allow the regulation of Internet content. The remaining provision of the law bars the publication of material online that is deemed obscene under "contemporary community standards." The lawsuit, filed last week in Federal District Court in New York, challenges that aspect of the law saying it is so broad and vague that it violates the First Amendment freedom of speech protection and could prohibit frank sexual discussion among adults on the Internet. Under the law, obscenity is determined using local community standards. But applying that standard to the Internet means asking the question whether the local community is the one where the Web site is hosted or the one where it is viewed, said Susan Wright, spokesperson for the NCSF. This existing CDA provision balances on the narrow difference in the…

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]]>CDA MediaFri, 22 Jun 2007 00:42:19 +0000Adult Video News - February, 2002https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/405-adult-video-news-february-2002.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/405-adult-video-news-february-2002.htmlNCSF Tackles "Community Standards" For The Web By Mark Kernes Adult Video News, February Issue Washington, DC The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom may not be a household name, even in the adult entertainment industry, but if their recently-filed lawsuit succeeds, they may go down in history as the first group to secure Americans' core constitutional speech rights. NCSF is based in the nation's capital [~] in fact, only a few blocks northwest of the Capitol itself [~] and their objective is to protect freedom of expression among consenting adults, which for them includes a large number of citizens who practice "alternative sexual lifestyles." The group, and one of its members, Barbara Nitke, filed suit on December 10 to challenge one portion of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that the ACLU never got around to [~] some would say, "didn't have the balls to consider" [~] challenging when they filed their suit in 1997, which suit resulted in the term "indecent" being struck from the law as an unconstitutional restriction on Internet free speech. But the CDA also criminalized Internet "obscenity," and that taboo remains in the law. And as far as plaintiffs' attorney John F. Wirenius is concerned,…

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]]>CDA MediaFri, 22 Jun 2007 00:34:56 +0000ABC News - July 29, 2002https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/404-abc-news-july-29-2002.html
https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/about-ncsf/annual-meeting-notes/item/404-abc-news-july-29-2002.htmlLove or Obscenity? S/M Photographer Challenges Internet Decency Standards By Dean Schabner ABCnews.com, July 29, 2002 When Barbara Nitke wanted to put her photographs of loving couples on the Internet, she thought she should check into the laws first. That's because Nitke's recent photographs have been focused on how some couples express their love through sado-masochism. What Nitke found after reading up on Internet law and talking to lawyers was that the remnants of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, much of which was declared unconstitutional in 1997, could conceivably put her in hot water if her work was considered obscene in some communities. She feared she could be charged with a crime and be forced to take the work down. So Nitke, along with the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, a group described on its Web site as "committed to protecting freedom of expression among consenting adults", filed suit against Attorney General John Ashcroft and the U.S. government, challenging the CDA's use of "local community standards" to define what can be considered obscene on the Internet. To respond to this article, write to: dean.schabner@abc.com